Across from the gutter used for eliminatory purposes was a long trough on steel legs. Two girls and a boy were standing there. The girls were using their hands to scoop some brown gunk into their mouths. Tim, staring at this with disbelief and sickened wonder, thought it looked like Maypo, the cereal of his childhood. The boy was bent over with his face in the stuff, his hands held out at his sides, snapping his fingers. A few other kids just lay on their mattresses, staring up at the ceiling, their faces tattooed with the shadows of the mesh.

As Maureen walked toward the Rinsenvac woman, presumably to take over her job, the picture cut out and the blue screen came back. They waited to see if Maureen would appear again in her wingback chair, perhaps to offer some further explanation, but there was nothing else.

“My God, what was that?” Frank Potter asked.

“The back half of Back Half,” Luke said. He was whiter than ever.

“What kind of people would put children in a—”

“Monsters,” Luke said. He got up, then put a hand to his head and staggered.

Tim grabbed him. “Are you going to faint?”

“No. I don’t know. I need to get outside. I need to breathe some fresh air. It’s like the walls are closing in.”

Tim looked at Sheriff John, who nodded. “Take him out in the alley. See if you can get him right.”

“I’ll come with you,” Wendy said. “You’ll need me to open the door, anyway.”

The door at the far end of the holding area had big white capital letters printed across it: EMERGENCY EXIT ALARM WILL SOUND. Wendy used a key from her ring to turn off the alarm. Tim hit the push-bar with the heel of his hand and used the other to lead Luke, not staggering now but still horribly pale, out into the alley. Tim knew what PTSD was, but had never seen it except on TV. He was seeing it now, in this boy who wouldn’t be old enough to shave for another three years.

“Don’t step on any of Annie’s stuff,” Wendy said. “Especially not her air mattress. She wouldn’t thank you for that.”

Luke didn’t ask what an air mattress, two backpacks, a three-wheeled grocery cart, and a rolled-up sleeping bag were doing in the alley. He walked slowly toward Main Street, taking deep breaths, pausing once to bend over and grip his knees.

“Any better?” Tim asked.

“My friends are going to let them out,” Luke said, still bent over.

“Let who out?” Wendy asked. “Those . . .” She didn’t know how to finish. It didn’t matter, because Luke didn’t seem to hear her.

“I can’t see them, but I know. I don’t understand how I can, but I do. I think it’s the Avester. Avery, I mean. Kalisha is with him. And Nicky. George. God, they’re so strong! So strong together!”

Luke straightened up and began walking again. As he stopped at the mouth of the alley, Main Street’s six streetlights came on. He looked at Tim and Wendy, amazed. “Did I do that?”

“No, honey,” Wendy said, laughing a little. “It’s just their regular time. Let’s go back inside, now. You need to drink one of Sheriff John’s Cokes.”

She touched his shoulder. Luke shook her off. “Wait.”

A hand-holding couple was crossing the deserted street. The man had short blond hair. The woman was wearing a dress with flowers on it.

26

The power the kids generated dropped when Nicky let go of Kalisha’s and George’s hands, but only a little. Because the others were gathered behind the Ward A door now, and they were providing most of the power.

It’s like a seesaw, Nick thought. As the ability to think goes down, TP and TK goes up. And the ones behind that door have almost no minds left.

That’s right, Avery said. That’s how it works. They’re the battery.

Nicky’s head was clear—absolutely no pain. Looking at the others, he guessed they were the same. Whether the headaches would come back—or when—was impossible to say. For now he was only grateful.

No more need for the sparkler; they were past that now. They were riding the hum.

Nicky bent over the caretakers who had Tased themselves into unconsciousness and started going through their pockets. He found what he was looking for and handed it to Kalisha, who handed it to Avery. “You do it,” she said.

Avery Dixon—who should have been home eating supper with his parents after another hard day of being the smallest boy in his fifth-grade class—took the orange key card and pressed it to the sensor panel. The lock thumped, and the door opened. The residents of Gorky Park were clustered on the other side like sheep huddled together in a storm. They were dirty, mostly undressed, dazed. Several of them were drooling. Petey Littlejohn was going “ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya” as he thumped his head.

They are never coming back, Avery thought. Their gears are too stripped to recover. Maybe Iris, too.

George: But the rest of us might have a chance.

Yes.

Kalisha, knowing it was cold, also knowing it was necessary: In the meantime, we can use them.

“What now?” Katie asked. “What now what now?”

For a moment none of them answered, because none of them knew. Then Avery spoke up.

Front Half. Let’s get the rest of the kids and get out of here.

Helen: And go where?

An alarm began to blare, whoop-whoop-whooping in rising and falling cycles. None of them paid any attention.

“We’ll worry about where later,” Nicky said. He joined hands with Kalisha and George again. “First, let’s get some payback. Let’s do some damage. Anyone got a problem with that?”

No one did. Hands once more linked, the eleven who had begun the revolt started back down the hall toward the Back Half lounge, and the elevator lobby beyond. The residents of Ward A followed in a kind of zombie shuffle, perhaps drawn by the magnetism of children who could still think. The hum had dropped to a drone, but it was there.

Avery Dixon reached out, searching for Luke, hoping to find him in a place too far away to be of any help to them. Because that would mean at least one of the Institute’s child slaves was safe. There was a good chance the rest of them were going to die, because the staff of this hellhole would do anything to keep them from escaping.

Anything.

27

Trevor Stackhouse was in his office down the hall from Mrs. Sigsby’s, pacing up and down because he was too wired to sit, and would remain that way until he heard from Julia. Her news might be good or bad, but any news would be better than this waiting.

A telephone rang, but it was neither the traditional jingle of the landline or the brrt-brrt of his box phone; it was the imperative double-honk of the red security phone. The last time it had rung was when the shit-show with those twins and the Cross boy had gone down in the cafeteria. Stackhouse picked it up, and before he could say a word, Dr. Hallas was gibbering in his ear.

“They’re out, the ones who watch the movies for sure and I think the gorks are out, too, they’ve hurt at least three of the caretakers, no, four, Corinne says she thinks Phil Chaffitz is dead, electrocu—”

“SHUT UP!” Stackhouse yelled into the phone. And then, when he was sure (no, not sure, just hopeful) that he had Heckle’s attention, he said: “Put your thoughts in order and tell me what happened.”

Hallas, shocked back to an approximation of his once-upon-a-time rationality, told Stackhouse what he had seen. As he was nearing the end of his story, the Institute’s general alarm began to go off.

“Christ, did you turn that on, Everett?”

“No, no, not me, it must have been Joanne. Dr. James. She was in the crematory. She goes there to meditate.”

Stackhouse was almost sidetracked by the bizarre image this raised in his mind, Dr. Jeckle sitting crosslegged in front of the oven door, perhaps praying for serenity, and then he forced his mind back to the situation at hand: the Back Half children had raised some kind of half-assed mutiny. How could it have happened? It had never happened before. And why now?

Heckle was still talking, but Stackhouse had heard all he needed. “Listen to me, Everett. Get every orange card you can find and burn them, okay? Burn them.”

“How . . . how am I supposed to . . .”

“You’ve got a goddam furnace on E-Level!” Stackhouse roared. “Use the fucking thing for something besides kids!”

He hung up and used the landline to call Fellowes in the computer room. Andy wanted to know what the alarm was about. He sounded scared.

“We have a problem in Back Half, but I’m handling it. Feed the cameras from over there to my computer. Don’t ask questions, just do it.”

He turned on his desktop—had the elderly thing ever booted up so slowly?—and clicked on SECURITY CAMERAS. He saw the Front Half cafeteria, mostly empty . . . a few kids in the playground . . .

“Andy!” he shouted. “Not Front Half, Back Half! Stop fucking arou—”

The picture flipped, and he saw Heckle through a film of lens dust, cowering in his office just as Jeckle came in, presumably from her interrupted meditation session. She was looking back over her shoulder.

“Okay, that’s better. I’ll take it from here.”

He flipped the image and saw the caretakers’ lounge. A bunch of them were cowering in there with the door to the corridor closed and presumably locked. No help there.

Flip, and here was the blue-carpeted main corridor, with at least three caretakers down. No, make it four. Jake Howland was sitting on the floor outside the screening room, cradling his hand against his smock top, which was drenched with blood.